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Poem: Censored

You say whisper so they won’t hear about you
The things, secret things you’ve done
and I’ve endured and pretend, bend like a books pages
read and skipped chapters
the titles that I wear on my face
keep captured in my teeth clench
My heart ached numbed by the mystery of pain
a woman was given hips to hold the weight of the world
to sway in line, I shouldn’t have to wait my turn in my own bedroom
Lying wait in the sheets I washed, you lay, they lay
I get put on the shelf
dust and cob webs form
that I wipe them away
And again and again and again I whisper and you pain

I should learn the first time
And in a perfect world
we are all soldiers of solitude
I could love you if I hated myself more
I could come back and stand in line and sway
with the hips of the world

Love doesn’t end suddenly
it breaks fractures and tries to repair itself
Some things are better left broken, better left silent
Their busted bodies repurposed
Pretzeled into new lives
New chances at better outcomes
Different versions of the same

I could blame the world and shame the man
But would rather learn to love another

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Puddles Pity Party—he sad clown with the golden throat that took the internet by storm—brings his repertoire of captivating and melodramatic covers to Bardavon in Poughkeepsie this Sunday, November 18 at 7pm.